lawsuits. i think we do want everybody business to be compliant, as they should be. but we're caught up sometimes with businesses that change hands. people don't know whether or not they're grandfathered in or whether or not -- how accessible it is to everybody. but we also know that there are many people who have disabilities that have also -- want to have access to the businesses all around these corridors and enjoy it as much as we do. so, i think full compliance is the goal. and to have education, to have free access assessment being done. and then to follow-up by those that are challenged economically, to have loans and to have grants that are made available to have all of them participate in this program is incredibly good for the city. and i think it will help many of the small businesses understand their obligations to respond to these better, but also help them get into

compliance better. so, i'm glad to launch this program here on irving street with supervisor chu who has been a really big champion for this. but we have many members of our business community that have also been asking us to do something positive about this. and not let these small businesses become victimized in these drive-by lawsuits. to do what we can to make it a positive thing. so, i'm so glad that joaquin has come aboard to help us. he, having headed up the neighborhood services program for years, now has his talent with todd in making sure that all of the small businesses along these commercial corridors have access to our programs, have a higher degree of understanding, along with our carla johnson and our mayor's office of disability, and all the different agencies working together, we're going to make this successful. this is a family of agencies that care about our small businesses. last time i looked, there were

over 71,000 businesses who registered that had less than 100 employees. that's an incredible sign of businesses that have -- that are our backbone, that hire a number of people. they're not the biggest employers, but they do hire the largest number of employees. over 51% of the city's employees are hired by small businesses. and i want to continue supporting them, nurturing them, have them increase. i hate seeing vacant, vacant buildings, vacant spots. benny knows every time we walk down there, what's going on with this site? what's going on with that site? char men chu knows that as well. we've done a lot of walks together. i want to see every one of these vacancies filled with small bustling business necessarition. we need them to hire more local folks. and one way to do it, one sure way to do it is to make sure that they meet the a-d-a requirements, the federal requirements, the state requirements, our local efforts to make sure that those that have disabilities can also shop

and be a participant in our local economy. so, with that, joaquin, thank you for your leadership. we get to launch this wonderful program right here. there are three streets in district 4 that are going to benefit from this. we're going to roll this out to all other 85 neighborhood corridors in the rest of the city. it's that many? 25? [laughter] >> all right, christmas must be coming early. i'll talk to supervisor chu about any more monies we can release. thanks very much. >> thank you, mr. mayor. (applause) >> thank you. and now i'd like to bring up the supervisor, the district that we're in today, someone who is no stranger to the importance of supporting our small businesses whose family used to run a restaurant. and like to invite to speak now supervisor carmen chu. (applause) >> thank you, everyone, for being here today. i want to thank the mayor so

much for coming out and launching this pilot here on irving street. as you know, when i came on board in 2007, one of the most important things we wanted to relay was how important it was to not only support our downtown businesses, but also to support all the small businesses that are located across the city in our communities. for many of the folks who come down to irving street or noriega or taraval or jude a a lot of the times people who come here who own the shops are locales are debttionv . they are people who live in our communities who want to help make our neighborhoods thrive. in 2007 when we first came on board and subsequent years, one of the things that we noticed was that there were a number of different businesses that were being targeted with some of these drive-by lawsuits. many a times when i spoke to businesses, they did not know about the requirements that they had to meet with the federal a-d-a laws. once letters came in, they didn't really know how to respond. they sort of put it away. and it was more egregious especially for our mono lingual communities and our merchants who really didn't understand the correspondence that they were seeing.

and, so, it really left them in a bad position. some of the businesses found that they had to close down their shops because they simply could not afford to make the a-d-a improvements and could not afford to pay the penalties associated with that. that's something we don't want to see. especially in the last few years, i think san francisco, we have really powered through some rough years economically. i hear with many of my merchants on sirfing street here who stuck with the neighborhood, stuck with this community and have gone through tough economic times and weathered it with us. we just want to make sure that we do everything we can as a city to support them. and, so, this issue about a-d-a com playboytionv fa public libraritionv is something that been going on for quite sometime. people say in san francisco how big is this problem? we know that since 2005 there are at least 300 lawsuits that have happened about a-d-a on a-d-a compliance issues in the city and county of san francisco. this is not insignificant for a city our size. and we know that these are things that we have to address. since that time with mayor lee who has actually done a number

of things, we've worked with the bar association to make sure that we have legal advice that can be given to our merchants on a very cost-effective basis. we've worked with regina and her shop with office of small business to make sure that we're doing training videos and making sure that different businesses are compliant and they know what their responsibilities are. we work with regina's shop to work with the community opportunity fund to set aside a million dollars to be directed towards improvement loans for small businesses to deal with a-d-a access issues. and i think this is sort of the next big step that the city is taking to make sure that we're supporting our small businesses in a very direct and hands on way. with this pilot, i am proud to announce that we have over $08,000 that will be going to this district to help with cast inspections. these are basically inspections of businesses to say what it is that you must do over a period of time to become compliant with a-d-a requirements and rules. and these are things that will really help our blitznesses weather any lawsuits and really plan to make sure their

businesses are accessible to all san franciscans. so, today i'm very proud of that. we're going to see over 30 businesses be able to have a casp inspection. that is a very meaningful piece to be able to help them weather some lawsuits if they should come down the pipeline. in addition to that, we expect to see $70,000 in actual physical improvement grants that will be coming into the district as well. and, so, i know that the mayor will be looking very intently to see how this program works, not only in my district, but also across the way in the richmond district and see whether this is a program that we can launch even wider city-wide. so, again, i'm really, really thankful for the mayor for his investment, and his dedication to small business. we talked a lot about supporting our small businesses and a lot of times i hear a lot of lip service to it. this is actually putting your mouth, your pocket where your mouth is and actually making that investment to make sure we support our small businesses. again, i want to thank the mayor. i want to thank all of my small businesses who have weathered the years here. * and of course to all of our departments who have been

absolutely phenomenal with this effort. thank you. (applause) >> all right. thank you, supervisor. and we also know that it's so important to make sure that we get the workout on the streets and we have to -- the right kind of nonprofit partners who help us achieve the goals of a program like this one is so important to our small businesses. so i'd like to invite up to speak frank baumgartner from small business economic developer to help get the word out with supervisor chu. so, frank? >> thanks, everybody, for being here. i'm with asian neighborhood design, project coordinator over there and we're a nonprofit architecture firm that's been around 40 years, specializing in improvements for small businesses and affordable housing. and we're really excited to be teamed up with osb and oewd on this venture to bring education about the importance of disabled access. and it's our aim to really make sure that all these small

businesses are inclusive to all patrons with the space that has the accessible upgrades and this a-d-a compliance. thank you. (applause) >> and one of the most important parts of the program of investing neighborhoods is making sure we're listening to the needs of our neighborhood partners. and to speak to those issues, are some of the small businesses who know how important it is to make sure we're getting the word out and who want to make sure their neighbors, small business neighbors are supported. one of those people is angela tickler, the hardware store across the street who will speak to the importance of this program now. (applause) >> angela. >> good morning. i'm also the president of our local merchants association. and, so, we have done a lot of work with carmen and katie's help over the last few years trying to educate particularly our mono lingual merchants in the area how they can protect themselves against these lawsuits, which we know for a

fact can close small businesses to have to close, which is a shame. * cause small businesses, in addition to hiring 51% of the people in the city, are also a huge part of the city's character and individuality, the things that make san francisco special and we want to make sure that that can keep going on. it is incredible that the mayor and carmen chu have figured out how to do this program as a small business owner myself, i am unable to afford to be able to pay for a casp inspection, yet i know how important it could be to me should a lawsuit come my way. so, i will be applying for one of these inspections and i am encouraging all my fellow merchants in this area to do the same, to try and take advantage of what is a great program that the mayor and carmen are piloting here in conjunction with those other agencies. it is important for us to be able to serve everybody in our community, but sometimes it's cost prohibitive for small merchants to be able to do that. so, we don't want to see people

going under by not being able to comply. so, this program will be really important to our merchants as well as others across the city and i hope and think it will be very, very successful. thank you. (applause) >> i want to thank you so much, angela, and for all your leadership as the president of the outer sunset mission and professional association here in the neighborhood. so, thank you. (applause) >> as we said, we want to make sure that we're reaching everyone in a culturally competent way through the program. to speak to that, the partner has done a lot of that work reaching up and down corridors like this one here. that's martin lam from good will. so, martin, if you could come up and speak. >> thank you, thank you very much. (applause) >> hi, on behalf of good will industry, i would like to -- i'm very honored to thank mayor ed lee and supervisor carmen chu for setting aside $400,000 to help local businesses to become a-d-a compliant. we filed with supervisor chu's office in the past to make sure

we get the word out, make sure they know how to do the a-d-a -- more update for the a-d-a. and a lot of our businesses, most of our neighbors in this community are small businesses, mom and pop stores and who don't have a lot of cash flow every month. so, we are very grateful for the mayor and supervisor's office for giving us the support. as you know, lawsuits can mean for a business that they have to close down if they don't have the cash to defend themselves hiring a lawyer. so, this past year alone, a lot of the small businesses actually have to move out of the city because of people doing drive-by lawsuits. here at the good will industry we are very grateful and one of our mission is to help people to create job opportunities for people who come here and work. so, one of the things that we care for is creating jobs in

the city and preserving jobs in the city. so, last year we were able to have about 7,000 people just to come by and to shop for us and to provide job opportunities and training opportunities throughout our missions and our [speaker not understood]. once again, i want to thank the mayor and carmen chu for helping us to get this funding. thank you. (applause) >> thank you all again so much for coming out. as you can see, this is a team effort so we can have the most and strongest collective impact in corridors like these and like the one investing in the neighborhoods program. i know the supervisor was very excited to get this program up and running right away. she'll be joining with the job squad member who has recently come onto the investing neighborhoods team, members of the office of small business to make sure we're getting the word out about this program right now. so, i just want to say thank you to all of you, to rob black from the restaurant association, benny yee to being

here, our merchants, our neighbors and all the city partners who really believe in supporting the businesses and of course to todd from the office of economic and work force development, supervisor chu and our mayor ed lee. thank you so much for this opportunity to help out our small businesses in our community. thank you very much and we'll be available for questions later on. thanks. (applause) ...

to the 2012ceta awards luncheon inspiring an equal future, ceta, the committee on the end of discrimination against women. we have an exciting afternoon for you including a thought-provoking video and an awards ceremony honoring some special women and a fund raising appeal. i'm going tor your mitt stress of ceremonies and make sure we're all enthusiastickd about going back to work on this great monday afternoon. but it's a great afternoon outside, right, we live in california. i'd like to welcome merry lee maupb today an who is president of the commission on the status

of women. marilyn. >> oh, i feel so tall. good afternoon, everyone, thank you for being here. my name is marilyn maupb today har, i'm the president of the friends of the san francisco commission of the status of women. and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2012 ceda awards luncheon and thank you for mcing our event this year. this luncheon celebrates the advancement of women's human rights and we are so glad to see you all here. this is our fourth event and many of you have come back and we thank you for being a regular fun. the friends was founded in 1976. we support the work of the san francisco commission and department on the status of women. we organize events in the community and work to increase public awareness about

issues affecting the lives of women and girls. so we're all about, we're all focused on improving the lives and well-being of women and girls socially, politically and economically and we strive to ensure an equal future for all. so first i would like to acknowledge the members of the friends. how many of you are members of the friends, may i see a raise of hands? oh, that's great. so at the end of the luncheon we want to make sure everyone is a friend, a friend to the san francisco commission on the status of women. so thank you for your membership and contribution. we do invite you to volunteer for many of our projects and activities. so now i'd like it acknowledge my board. these board members have tirelessly given their time and resources and today would not have been possible without their help. so may i have the board members of the friends please stand up, hold

your applause as i recognize each one of them. so we have meg mccallister, kathy campbell, who is just walking to her table, una martai with common welt club of california, stephanie block, our social media girl, patricia bovan with sumantec, patricia lynn with merrill lynch, barbara mark with -- barbara mark and her friends, over there, yeah, waving, her

friend's friends table. please help me applaud these wonderful women. esther caldwell with delloyd could not be here, she is expecting twins and is on bed rest. i also want to say that today really the details of today, as you know, those of you who do event planning, would not have been possible without our event chairs. i want to acknowledge the 4 co-chairs, it takes a group of friends to put things together. help me acknowledge meg mccallister, cinta lynn really paid attention to all the details of this luncheon today.

just like the script, i'm not used to having a script but i have it keep on time here. so i also would like to recognize our honor area event chair, first lady neat ta lee. she could not join us this afternoon but sends her thanks for your support. but i have the privilege of welcoming and introducing someone you all know, a very special guest with us today, our much-esteemed mayor, mayor ed lee. join me in welcoming mayor lee. (applause). >> so, mayor, this is about women power, not (inaudible) power. >> certainly not hanoi power. thank you again for mcing

today's event. i wanted to come by and welcome everybody. i was ordered by anita to make sure i was here. it is my pleasure to join all of you today and in, again, lovely, beautiful ballroom. thank you for getting us here. janet, this is a beautiful place we have in this building. it is apropos that cedal, the commission and the friends have this event here. it's one of the most beautiful rooms this city has to offer. it is reflective of the tribute that we pay for all the honorees. but as i just wanted to address you today, i wanted to thank everyone here in this room for coming together on this event every year to honor those in different walks of life that are contributing to improving our chances of being full equality for women. we

still have a ways to go. there is so much to do but we have accomplished quite a bit. i know former mayor brown, who is not here yet, but he will be dashing in, let him know i said this. if he were the president of the united states we would be the 186th country it ratify cdal i say that because i know he and his history was the very first to sign up our city, it pass the ordinance when he was the mayor, to make sure we were on the road by abiding by those principles and then when i had a chance as director of public works i took up the helm for that department. you know, those years, they were really blue collar attitudes in public works, but we found the women leaders that we could acknowledge and promote and it became an even better agency for that very

reason. so i want to again acknowledge that history. we still have a lot to do since our country has yet to ratify these principles. i hope that we will get closer and closer to do that or if not do it now, it is something that i think we've really been embarrassed about as a country not to do this on a national level. but i join you today in acknowledging as well the great work that we have locally. i know that not only do we want to be models for the rest of the country but we also are working very hard at home and we produced some tremendous results. just 10 years ago, you would have seen statistics that we were quite concerned about. some 10 domestic violence homicides each year just 10 years ago that was happening. due to the fact that our commission on the status of women and thank you for your

great leadership, emily and julie for the presidency this year and the friends, 10 years later we have reduced that by 80 percent in this city. it's a wonderful, wonderful tribute. we've done this with a great unity between the board and the mayor's office and i want to thank and recognize all the supervisors that are here. i saw scott wiener and the short guy in the elevator. supervisor cohen, i saw her a few minutes ago, thank you for being here. if i missed the other supervisors, my apologies, i know many of them are on their way and coming. i have striven to work really hard with our supervisors to make sure that we agree as much as we can on things that are important and certainly the agenda for the commission on

the status of women, the fact they can hand out some $3 million dollars in grants every year to community-based organizations to keep that work up, to keep the issues in front of us, to make sure we never accept not even one domestic violence case in this case, is something that we would be willing to accept. and i'm sure you agree with that. (applause). just an hour ago i swore in the new, the newest department head of our city, jennifer johnston, who is now the executive officer for the civil service commission. she joins in a line for some fantastic women leaders of our city. they include naomi kelly, our city administrator, thank you for being here. i haven't seen her yet but i know joe an hayes

white, vickky hennesy, our interim sheriff. >> doing a great job, too, vicky >> adrian pawn, monique hawn, our port, i know karen hong is our county clerk, she's joining us as well and the host of women on our commissions and our directors of our various nonprofits, thank you for all joining us and being a part of us as well.that our other elect

officials who are here today including our diega skoepb is here as well, other elected officials, i know we have an official from the justice department, thank you for being here and other elected officials join me in acknowledging. i know diego gascon has another reason for being here. brenda yee, chinese hospital, we just broke ground on chinese hospital, thank you for your leadership and all the health field.

christine bronstein, band of wives, thank you for your wonderful leadership, wonderful acknowledgement today. delloyd, our corporate partner, a hundred years in san francisco, thank you for your wonderful leadership. esther solar, where would we be without you? thank you. futures without violence, thank you very much, esther. fabiola kronsky, thank you for your work on univision, thank you for your constant encouragement and we hope you stay in san francisco. janet riley, clinic by the bay, your wonderful work in our community, thank you very much, janet. dr. jean bolen, a millionth circle, thank you and

congratulations. very much for being here. and misha, thank you charles schwab and misha, thank you very much for your leadership. waley dye, you show up on these tech companies, i'm the only woman here, thank you for your leadership in technology and helping us lead this whole bay area to a wonderful success, thank you and congratulations. of course if willie brown isn't here today i'm going to continue thanking the honorable willie brown for his wonderful leadership. as you know he and i continue to be partners in crime but he often says keep treating the board of supervisors like your misstresses. i keep telling him, not ever having d